The Featherfoot of Aussie Aboriginal Lore

The Featherfoot is of the Australian Kadaitcha Lore. The name is a reference to the shoes of the Kadaitcha Men of High Degree, these allow the wearer to pass across the ground unseen and unheard. They were made of feathers, blood and human hair and held mystic powers belonging to ancient tribal Aboriginal Lore.

Understood to be of use only once, the shoes remain a mystery in their construction despite samples being available. It is known that the sole is constructed of feather and blood although it is unknown how they remain together. The upper shoe is of woven hair and their construction in based in ceremony, as is their use. They were kept hidden from the eyes of women and children and commonly wrapped in skins to conceal them. These shoes were a mystic weapon of the Australian Tribal Aboriginal and one greatly respected above all others.

The shoes of the Featherfoot were constructed to use when the Kadaitcha men & women hunted a prey, largely making them invisible in their movements. The Kadaitcha were the law-keepers of the Aboriginal mobs or tribes, their reputation spreading across the continent and they were the only shaman permitted to kill with impunity under their Lore.

This practice and faith provided the means for a balance to be maintained within the communities or mobs and this balance of life, between right-way and wrong-way was the aspiration and goal of the people. Seen as a balance essential between nature and the world around them and that, which belonged and was an intrinsic need for co-existence with the spirit world and their own experience.

Before the Kadaitcha could hunt a victim under their Lore there was ceremony to be observed. It is understood that this included the dislocation of the smallest toe, which is believed to have helped the Kadaitcha to move across the land silently and in perfect balance, leaving no trace or sound.

The Kadaitcha carried out the sentence of death in a number of ritualistic ways, this included ‘bone pointing’ which is the most commonly understood of the methods used. This human ‘hunt’ was not without cost to the man or woman of the Lore. The ceremonies they undertook were complex and it is believed required the spilling of their own blood, returning its life giving strengths to the earth in payment for the life they would lay waste. While the ‘pointing of the bone’ is considered to be psychosomatic in its power there were other ritual methods used, some more efficient than others.

Choosing a manner of death for the perpetrator was a serious thing and it would have been that much had needed to be considered. The Kadaitcha did not act alone, they were a body of Lore and hunted together often in two’s and three’s. As they progressed through their Lore they became more powerful in their strengths and often more feared.

Having spent many years researching the Lore of the Kadaitcha it has been a struggle to find the evidence of their secretive Lore, let alone the practices. For my novels I have had need to piece together the fragmented stories from many sources to give the tales a cultural authenticity. The Featherfoot and the Lore of the Kadaitcha men are a theme followed throughout the stores of The Dreaming Series. In regards to the Kadaitcha, Book 4, Caverns of the Dreamtime deals in this Lore the deepest of all the stories while this Lore is revealed slowly across all the four novels. I have attempted to bring to my readers some understanding of the Kadaitcha and all that they were, are and could have been to their people. This Lore is a fascinating study in spirituality.

My stories are fictional novels, tales of adventure, Lore and love along with the representation of an ancient culture about which, not all can be known. However in bringing these tales to you I hope to give you the gift of the Dreaming and of the Dreamtime. A way of life, which has been nurtured within one of the most ancient of lands continually inhabited by any one people, for over 50,000 years. It is a culture like no other in the world although it holds many similarities to others, threads that touch each other across time. It is a culture largely, and in general without avarice or greed and this is truly an amazing thing in the banal commerce of our world today.

In Australia, the ‘pointing of the bone’ is considered still very much a threat and a deed that is common enough amongst believers that evidence of its malaise is taught to medical staff as symptomatic of the practice.

Still today, there are threads of what ruled a culture barely a hundred years ago, one which has largely faded into history and the eon’s of time but which still pops up in our own world.

Happy reading everyone

For further information on the Featherfoot, refer also to the posting on the Kadaitcha.

You can also find out more about posting on this ancient Lore on the page dedicated to Ancient Australia.
 You can discover more about the stories in The Dreaming Series here on the dedicated page.

To read more travel tales, or explore the world of the Australian Aboriginal Shaman told in a fictional tale and to discover other works on traveling around Aus. visit my web at http://janhawkins.com.au and check out the discounts available for my readers and friends on ‘Where to find Jan’s Books’.

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